


The Exception

by startrekto221B



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Drugs, First Kiss, M/M, Post-His Last Vow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-03-22 16:22:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3735553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrekto221B/pseuds/startrekto221B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after His Last Vow. John and Sherlock know something's different now about their relationship. They know they can't do anything about it. But allow for one exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Exception

**Author's Note:**

> Listen to this while you read, if you want.  
> [Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9ayN39xmsI)

Sherlock watched John with Mary. Saw the life they could have had. It might have even been better if John was completely out of reach. Living like this, so close but yet so far, and the constant reminder of what could have been, what _should_ have been, was nearly unbearable. He could keep up the act of the best friend only a little longer, he knew. Then he could quietly move out of John’s life. There was no other way.

As it was he could barely stand the thought of another person living with John. A person who could kiss him whenever they liked. Be with him all the time. Be the new center of John’s life. Privy to his comings and goings, his complaints and his wants and needs for the rest of their life. It had taken years. Years to admit that he wanted that. But he should have realized long ago. Now was too late. Far too late. Sherlock had no right, he knew, to expect anything more from John. He had left, after all. And Mary, being a woman, for one thing, and far better at molding to societal expectations on the outside, whatever kind of psychopath she might be on the inside, made her a much better match for John than mercurial, temperamental Sherlock.

He didn’t like visiting their flat. Seeing their things together. Then going back to Baker Street and sitting in his chair, in the living room all alone. In time perhaps he would start talking to the skull again. There was nothing else for it. He would simply go back to the way it was before.

John came with him on cases still from time to time. But it was different now. Mary took priority. And soon the baby would take priority. And he would stop coming. Sherlock knew. It had already begun.

It pained him still that he had never told John. Never told him that after all these years, after all this time, at the exact wrong moment, he had realized that he was in love with him. Desperately. Most ardently. Images flashed in his mind at the wedding of another wedding. _Would John have danced with him at their wedding? Would they have had a wedding at all?_ When he was teaching John how to waltz it had felt more right than wrong. But it was of course wrong. Terribly wrong. Sherlock could not want him. He could not let his heart rule his head.

He had never told him. The laughter between them was strained now. All the conversations weighed down by the words left unsaid. Sherlock remembered how it had felt when he and John had run from the police hand-in-hand. _Would they have been the kind of couple who held hands?_ He would never know.

So many questions. Sherlock was used to being able to deduce the answers to almost everything but these were eternal blanks upon his mind. _What did John’s lips feel like? What would it have felt like when he kissed me? Would it have been gentle? Forceful? Passionate? What would it have been like?_ He would never know.

John, for his part, knew that something had changed. Perhaps he thought it was just Sherlock being Sherlock. Just as well. _Would we have grown old together?_ No. No. No sense thinking of an imaginary future.

“It’s different now,” John had said cautiously one day as they stepped inside.

“To what are you referring?” Sherlock pretended not to know what he was talking about.

“You, I mean,”

This was his chance. _It should have been me. You should be with me. Kissing me. Sleeping with me. Living with me. I want you. I need you. I can’t have you and it’s killing me John. It’s slowly killing me._

“I am the same as I always have been, your vantage point has changed,”

“Maybe,” John said, and they said nothing more, John had to be getting back after all.

But John came back at midnight. It was pitch black outside and when Sherlock opened the door he was shocked. He could count the times in his life when he had been shocked on the fingers of his hand. Most, not surprisingly, related in some way or another to John.

“John, are you mad?” Sherlock asked, “It’s freezing, come in,”

“I can’t, not in there, you come out,”

Sherlock stepped out into the windy street, “Well, it’s obviously important; you came all this way,”

“It’s the wrong time to say this, but I can’t stop thinking about it, and damn it all, damn you Sherlock,”

“What did I do now?” Sherlock snapped, “I’ve been trying so hard, so hard to step aside so you can live out your perfect little life, and this is the thanks I get, damn you Sherlock at midnight in the freezing cold?”

“You know what?” John retorted, “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you the truth,”

“Well I’m waiting!”

“It would have been you,” John lowered his voice, “In any other life it would have been you.”

_What if he kissed me right now? What if he left everything behind for me right now? What if we could be happy?_

“But not this one,” Sherlock couldn’t look at him.

“And now? What now?” John asked.

“You should probably leave, whatever else we say I can guarantee you’ll regret it in the morning,”

“Sherlock is actually a girl’s name,” John laughed bitterly, “You said that. And you got on that plane. Came back because of the hoax Moriarty. Months have passed. You still haven’t explained it. You haven’t explained a bloody thing!”

“What do you fucking want from me?” Sherlock almost shouted, “How low do you want to bring me? Hmm? You want to know what it means? You want an explanation? I’ll give you one. I love you, John. And here’s to the end of our friendship because you sure as hell won’t be able to keep seeing me now.”

John stared at him for a few seconds, taken aback by the exclamation.

“I wanted you, Sherlock,” John said simply, “But you died. I had to—“

“Move on,” Sherlock finished, “When you walk away from here know that I don’t blame you in the slightest.”

“Thank you,” John said, “Oh god, Sherlock I don’t want to do this, shake hands with you again and just go our separate ways,”

“Just once then, let’s make an exception, just one time, then you can live your life, you can finally let me go,” Sherlock said, the cold biting his skin.

“What do you mean, Sherlock?” John asked.

“Kiss me,” Sherlock said, and hoped the desperation hadn’t seeped into his voice, “Please,”

Sherlock hadn’t really expected John to take him up on it. But there was one of his questions answered. _So this is what it feels like._ He savored the feel of John’s mouth against his own, John’s hands carding through his hair, John’s tongue inside his mouth, John’s body pressed close against his. John’s arms around him. A shield from the cold. _This is what I wanted._

Sherlock didn’t know whether this kiss was for all the years wasted before them or for all the years ahead. It had to be enough for both. So many mistakes. So much trouble. Years gone. A future taken. _This is what it feels like. Don’t forget. Never forget._

John stepped back after the kiss, staring at Sherlock in a kind of silent agony he had never seen before. Almost dazed.

Sherlock didn’t know what to say after a kiss like that, so he said the first thing that came to mind, in retrospect it was so bland, he wished he had left John with something better, “It’s been a pleasure,”

“It has,” John smiled, but it was a hollow smile, “I’ll call you.”

“You won’t.”

“I know.”

Sherlock watched as he walked away. Disappearing at last into the shadows of the night. He stood in the cold a few minutes longer. _What if he turned back? Came running back into Sherlock’s arms saying he couldn’t do it?_ He waited. He waited. He waited.

It was dawn when he went back inside.

John never came.


	2. Almost

The movies make it look easy. Confess your undying love to someone whilst standing in the rain and they will fall into your arms and claim to have felt the same for so, so long. But reality is far different. There are real consequences to consider. Is it worth betting what you already have, staking it all on based on an uncertainty? It’s risk. And risk must be respected.

What would have happened if Sherlock had told John earlier? A crisis over his heterosexuality? A break in their partnership? Would that have been worth it? Of course, in retrospect, the answer is obvious. _I should have just told him_. Sherlock continuously berates himself. At the time however, it was only logical to do nothing.

In the days after you leave a person, or they leave you, there’s nothing you can do to stop yourself from thinking of them. When they’re dead it’s easier, you can’t fall back on old behaviors, because their departure is permanent. When it’s a choice, it’s not so easily done.

John wants to turn back. John wants to turn back so many times as he walks home. At one point he almost does. _Almost_. The word stings. Everything so close. But not really touching. Sherlock said something like that once, how molecules don’t actually touch each other. There’s always an infinitesimally small space in between. It’s ironic really, that Sherlock knew so much about chemistry and also knew nothing at all.

In the morning John has breakfast with Mary. Realizes he’ll get up to this same table and drink this same coffee and this same omelet with this same woman for the rest of his life.

The movies make it look easy. It’s so easy to drop everything, run to the airport and stop the person you love from leaving. It’s easy to dump one girlfriend and find the woman of your dreams. Marry her. Have a happy ending. But real life isn’t like that. There are complications. People can get hurt. Ties aren’t so easily cut.

 _I need him_. John’s mind says as he stares at the quiet orderliness of the suburban lifestyle around him. He looks at the phone. But he doesn’t call. He can’t call.

The good times flash through his mind. Him and Sherlock on cases. Him and Sherlock at the flat. Him and Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes. The single greatest thing he has witnessed in his existence. He could tell his children one day that he had seen true genius. In this way he considers himself no different than those who saw Mozart in concert or heard the voices of the angels. He isn’t a religious man. But through Sherlock, he thinks, he saw a vision of God.

He could get up right now. Tell Mary it’s over. He could leave. But he doesn’t.

He imagines running into Sherlock on accident thirty or forty years from now. They would be strangers then. How would Sherlock look like when he’d grown old? Would he be senile by then? Crankier than ever? Would he stop in the street and recognize John? Would he walk right past? Would Sherlock even be alive then? Sherlock’s life, so fast and so quick, would it have consumed him by then? Would John be called again to a grave, this time truly holding the body of one Sherlock Holmes?

 _I can’t do this_. John looks at Mary. He looks at the phone.

He thinks of last night, walking home in the darkened mists. He wonders what would have happened if he had turned back. He looks at the phone.

He disconnects it from the wall.

She says nothing.

He doesn’t care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't actually planning to add to this. But this happened anyway.


	3. Insanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In their own ways, Sherlock and John are slowly going insane. In doing so they allow for one more exception.

There’s something calling him. A siren’s song. John can’t read the newspaper anymore. Can’t otherwise he might see something about the famous detective. He can’t look at men in coats the same way. He disables texting on his phone. Only ever calling now. That way if Sherlock ever texts he won’t feel the pull. Won’t respond and then lose his resolve. Run back to the only life in which he was happy.

It takes him a week to give up the newspaper.

A month to give up texting.

It takes him three months to give up tea.

For most British people, this is unthinkable. Tea is after all, God’s intended liquid sustenance. But in some twisted way, giving it up is a relief. In some way John is now punishing himself physically to mirror the way he’s punishing himself emotionally. Which shouldn’t make _any_ sense. But somehow makes all the sense in the world.

Mary wants him to see a therapist. Sod that. He’s fine. He’ll be fine.

At all times of the day he finds himself wondering what Sherlock is doing. Is Sherlock going on cases alone? Is Sherlock sitting in his room? Is Sherlock looking out the window? Playing the violin? Talking to himself? Is he thinking about _me_? Is he as obsessed with me as I am with him?

He drives past Baker Street sometimes in the cab. Sometimes he pays two fares just to drive twice across it and look at the door. It’s pathetic. It really is. But how much longer can it really last? Sherlock is after all one man. John can’t live his entire life pining after what can never be. But without Sherlock, a darkened thought enters his mind every so often in the dead of night, perhaps he can’t live at all.

Four months after the long walk home John takes a cab past Baker Street. Traffic is heavy and it comes to a stop right when John’s cab is in front of 221. It’s a sign. Oh god, it’s a sign. Before he knows what he’s doing, he runs to the door. He knocks. And he hopes to god no one answers.

“I know why you’re back,” Sherlock says, surprisingly calm.

John can’t say anything at all.

“It’s alright, you have to get it out of your system, I understand,”

“No,” John says, “That would be wrong.”

“Is _any_ of this right?”

John is sure they’ve both lost their minds. Sherlock strips down so quickly John can hardly protest. As if he was expecting this there’s some lubricant in the other room. John slips a slickened finger in and prepares him, as if they’ve done this a hundred times and not just now because there was some traffic and perhaps a sign of god. John unbuckles his trousers and pulls down his pants and pushes himself into Sherlock repeatedly. In and out in a rhythm that feels practiced but obviously isn’t. Sherlock for his part, asks him to go harder, faster, harder, faster, harder and faster and the feeling of Sherlock’s arse contracting around his hard cock is more pleasure than John has ever, ever felt from his wife. He’s going to hell. They’re both going to hell. But at that moment he doesn’t care. The feeling of being inside Sherlock, having him so roughly up against the wall, that feeling overwhelms everything.

They need to talk about it, John knows. But when he pulls out of Sherlock at last, re-buckling his pants and sagging against the opposite wall, reeling from the sheer strangeness of what he has just done, Sherlock surprises him.  

“Get out,” he says rather coldly.

“We should talk,”

“I’m the exception not the rule, get out of _my_ flat,”

 _My_ flat. Okay. He means business. John runs out of there, amazingly, the cab is still waiting. He sits inside, mind still running on overdrive. What the hell just happened? What? Why? He remembers the feeling of thrusting into Sherlock. One of these days, he’s going to go mad.

Sherlock himself cannot believe what he just did. But to be fair, he hasn’t been feeling the greatest the past four months either. He hasn’t been on a single case that wasn’t Mycroft sponsored. Has become something of a hermit. He thought John _might_ come for this. But he thought that might just be the delirium doing the thinking. Even so. The fullness that came when John was inside him, just now, did that actually happen? Or had he just imagined that John had come and fucked him hard against the wall? Wouldn’t be the first time. No. No. Dream John always stayed afterward. Real John left. That was the difference. Had Sherlock told him to leave? Oh yes, he had. _Why did you do that?_

“I don’t know why I did that, idiot,”

“You’re the idiot, letting him have you like that,”

“Don’t call me that,”

It’s such a riot. Talking to oneself. Sherlock wonders whether John does. John at least, would have interesting things to talk about. Sherlock only insults himself. Insults himself, wounds himself and cries.

“You are an imbecile, Sherlock Holmes, to think that man came back for any other reason than to avail himself of you. It’s a craving that’s all you are. Bizarre sort of drug.” Sherlock says to himself.

“Drug?”

“No. We can’t.”

“But why not?”

Sherlock goes upstairs, opens a shoe box and pulls out a syringe, the label says 7% in his messy scrawl. Finally, he thinks to himself, something that will dull the pain. Finally, a chance to be free.


	4. It Doesn't Feel Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John goes to visit Sherlock again.

John goes straight to bed when he goes home, his head spinning. Why had he thought that was a good idea? _Well done John, you’ve lost your best friend in this world because you had to go and stick your cock up his arse._ But he remembers the feeling of it, being buried so deep inside Sherlock...and he wanted it for so long. And Sherlock, despite how he may have reacted, he had wanted it too. John had felt it. Sherlock had needed that contact. Sherlock had asked for it. It didn’t even feel wrong. Yet he remembers Sherlock’s face when he had told him to leave. Was it really over?

John stays away from Baker Street a few more days. But after a week had past he can't take it anymore. He takes a cab there and just knocks on the door, rapping just loudly enough so that someone one floor up might hear, just as he might on a stranger’s door and one that didn’t mean everything to him. Its ridiculous, he practically has the number 221B tattooed across his soul and he still lives somewhere else. He has Sherlock’s name across his heart and he's still married to someone else. Its eating him from the inside like a parasite, this bizarre life he's leading.

 

Sherlock opens the door and looks shocked to see him, “Yes?”

“Got a case?” John asks lightly, as if the last time he was there he hadn’t pinned the other man against the wall and fucked him.

“Are you serious?” Sherlock asks.

“As I’ll ever be, if you’ve got one I’ll come with you,” John says.

“Wait here,” Sherlock says, “I’ll grab my coat.”

 

Its just like any other case. And John feels no reason why he should inform Mary where he is so he tells her work is running late. It doesn’t feel wrong at all. And it doesn't feel wrong even when they get back to the flat and John fucks Sherlock against the wall again.

Mary asks him over the next few weeks why he is never in the mood for sex. Why he is always working late. How can he possibly tell her? _Sorry my love, I’ve been solving murders with my best friend again and then nailing him every night_. That would go over well.  

“Why don’t you just leave her?” Sherlock asks one day after they had done it, “Just come back to me.”

He sounds so sad. It makes John want to kiss him. But even after doing it all these times they have never kissed. That would take them somewhere else. That would make it impossible to leave him.

“You know I can’t,” John says, “You know why I can’t.”

They’re silent for a bit after that.

“After you did it to me the first time I was going to start using,” Sherlock admits, “I would have if you didn’t come back. Why did you?”

“We’re both addicts. You to cocaine. Me to you.”


End file.
